How To Stay Motivated,
When All You Want To Do Is Give Up & Quit!

In our last issue I spoke about how to make money even when times are tough and the economy is horrible. We always get feedback from each newsletter issue ... but with our last issue, we received 3-4 times more than the usual amount!

Believe it or not, every single one was a positive feedback, which only confirms that if you are feeling stressed out recently - don't worry, you are definitely NOT alone!

Anyway, we received about a dozen emails with the same type of question:

"Sam, it's hard to stay motivated - how do you do it? How do you keep going even when you want to quit? Or do you just never want to quit?"

Are you kidding me! ... At least once a month (and sometimes weekly) I ask myself why I'm doing this and how much more I can take? But over the years, I've learned that this is natural. I've interviewed lots of successful people and when they finally open up, they all tell me that they had MASSIVE doubt when they first started whatever it was they were doing. And over the course of their business, doubt continued to pop in its ugly head.

So, if you do feel like "blah" and don't feel any motivation or just feel like giving up and doing something else ... I want to let you know that this is NATURAL and normal. Don't think that other people or successful entrepreneurs had a ton of motivation and energy throughout the course of their business life.

We ALL feel down and unmotivated from time to time.

With the above said, let's discuss a few simple tactics that I use in my personal life to stay motivated.

Staying Motivated: Here's My Advice ...

I'm not going to get into anything too complicated, but here's what I do and what has helped my clients and friends. Most of these things you probably already know, but remember, knowing something isn't going to do you any good unless you TAKE ACTION AND ACTUALLY DO IT!

I'm going to take a different approach this time. Rather then advise you on what to do, let me go through the steps that I go through when I don't feel motivated and what I do to get passed it.

1.	First, I set aside some quite time and think back to when I USE to be motivated. Why was I motivated to begin with? What was my goal at the beginning? Did I do this for me or for someone else? Did I want to do it or was I "forced" into? I make a list ... even if there's only a few lines of ideas or text, it doesn't matter. You should use this time simply for brainstorming. And please don't give me or yourself some lame excuse that you have "no free time" during the day ... even if it's just for 20 minutes. If you do, then you're a liar. Get in your car, drive a block and pull over and think for 20-30 minutes. Nobody is going to bother you and if that's what you have to do to get some quiet, then so be it.
2.	Next, I make a similar list as to why I'm NOT motivated any more. What happened and when did I start to lose my motivation? Did I just get burned out because I did too much too fast and too soon? Did someone say something negative that turned me off and killed my motivation? Or am I just being lazy and would rather watch the basketball game on TV? Again, make a list. Doesn't matter how long or short it is. We're just brainstorming ... no right or wrong answers here.
3.	Then it's time to analyze things. Here's what I find with most people. Problem 1: Most of the time people have super high expectations. For example, they'll start some new ad campaign for a product and they expect the first set of ads to be a home run winner and bring them back 100% profit. When the ad fails and they lose their money, they become angry and frustrated and give up. Solutions 1: It's totally crazy to think you're going to get it "right" the first or second or even tenth time around. Everyone is different. If every ad I ever put out was a success, I'd be richer than Bill Gates. It's best to keep your expectations REALISTIC at the beginning. Instead of thinking you're ad is going to be a success, your goal should be to just write and place the ad and see how the results are. Ideally, your first batch of ads should be a test and you should pretty much break even I think. A lot of people do better, but breaking even is also very good. Remember, your first set of ads are just for TESTING purposes. The key is to see which one of the ads did well and which ones bombed. Get rid of the "bad" ads and repeat the profitable ones. With each successive ad campaign, your profit margin will increase tremendously. In fact, we've covered this topic in issues 32, 28 and a little in 27. You may want to read or reread those issues. Problem 2: Most people have no direction or any real goal in mind. Or if they have a goal, it's a horrible one ... extremely general and very hard to attain. The other day I asked a client "What do you want to accomplish with your website?". His response was "I want to make money". Doh! Really? I'm surprised... Solutions 2: See, that's a lame answer. How much money do you want to make? In what span of time? How much time and money are you willing to invest? And finally, are the end results even realistic? Most people can't answer any of those questions and yet, they expect awesome results. Sorry, in the real world, things don't work like that. On top of it, they aren't even willing to put in the time and energy to try and answer these types of questions. Sometimes we get a frustrated customer asking us a million questions ... so I reply back with just a few questions to see where he is and where he wants to go. Guess what - NO ANSWER ... In fact, these type of people never even reply back to my email because they just don't care to put in the effort in answering the questions. If you don't care where you are going, why should anyone else?!! Problem 3: It's human nature to be OVERLY excited when starting something new. Unfortunately, most people end up doing too much, too soon, and doing it all much too fast. This of course almost always ends in burn out and frustration. Solutions 3: Pace yourself and again, have goals. Monthly, weekly and daily goals and a "to-do list". Just do a little every day and before you know it, you've got a lot done. Just the other day some client told me that he's doing ezine advertising and search engine promotions and he wants to now get into some publicity stuff! That's just crazy thinking because he just started all of this a couple of weeks ago. How can you do all of that and do them well? You can't! Just do one thing at a time, perfect it, automate it and move on to the next tactic. All you need is one good way to make money and you are set. Problem 4: This last problem is a very common one and it has to do with surrounding yourself with negative people. Remember, misery loves company and if other people are going nowhere in life ... they'll take you down with them! Negative and unmotivated people just suck your time and energy and give nothing back. Solutions 4: One thing you can do is just get rid of negative people and energy in your life. Of course, sometimes it's hard to do, especially if that someone who is negative is a spouse or a parent or someone else close. At the very least, LIMIT your time with them and try to balance out their negativity with some new POSITIVE friends. Getting rid of negativity and negative people will probably be the hardest thing to do for most people ... but it really is a bigger problem than most people know or admit to.
4.	Lastly, get some outside hobby that has nothing to do with your business. For example, I like to workout. When I feel unmotivated or stressed out, I go to the gym. I have a good workout. I can then draw positive energy from the workout and transfer it to my business problem. You have to have something positive in your life to draw energy and strength from when times are tough. Some people have a really great business partner or spouse or coach who can motivate them and KEEP them motivated. Most of us may not be so fortunate, so pick some outside hobby that you really enjoy and can give that zest in your life and kick start everything else when the day seems gloomy.

I could go on and on and there's a lot more you can do, but the above is a start. In fact, I'll keep the rest of this issue shorter than usual so you can get started ASAP on getting some of that motivation back because it's damn near impossible to run a successful business when you feel burned out and bored and frustrated.

Summary

Staying motivated is very hard. No matter how much drive a person has ... it's bound to disappear at times. And that's fine. But the problem is for most people, it NEVER reappears. Most of us are very motivated when we start something new. But as soon as we hit a roadblock, we become frustrated and give up.

The difference between most successful people and the "rest of the public" is that successful people don't dwell on the negatives and they find a way to get motivated again and get going. What we talked about in this issue isn't something new to most people. We all know what to do. But of course, we never do it.

Think of this issue more of a REMINDER, than anything else. Here are a few key points we covered today:

Thanks for taking the time to read this issue. As always, we would greatly appreciate it if you wanted to "Give Feedback & Win" or if you have any ideas for a future newsletter issue or article. Take care and have a great day!

Warmest Regards,

Sam Robbins
CEO & President
Cash Flow Global Enterprises, LLC

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